Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall

Blowing through the work
I'm amazed. I got through a project that I had estimated at 15–20 hours in four hours today. Maybe I'm just getting more conservative in my estimates—in this case way over-conservative. I've noticed that a lot lately that I'm getting billable work out well under estimates. Maybe it's an overreaction to past estimates where I way underestimated.

Well, I have the same project to do on the other site, which should be quite a bit more complicated, so we'll see how things average out between the two. But it is heartening that I seem to have outgrown my old tendency to grossly underestimate. Although it might be another example of how much quicker things go when I don't keep getting interrupted for some hot new idea du jour.

Tomorrow will be an uncharacteristic day away from the computer, as I go to my son and daughter's track meet. Oh, I'll take some non-computer stuff to look over during some of the down times, but it will be nice to have an actual reason to take a day off, guilt-free. But I'm sure I'll be back at the computer for a while after the meet... Is this still sounding like a day off to you?

The pendulum is swinging back toward One Stop again. I've done a couple of days of billable work, now I'm feeling that I'm letting the building work (as in building my own business) get away from me. Well, just gotta keep plugging along.
Jeff

What was I saying about focus?
Hmm. Yesterday I talked about the importance of focus for success. Today, after getting some billable work done, I organized the products I want to write reviews of, product that I have either used or wanted to test. I came up with 76, of which I've written 13 reviews so far.

Looks like a little bit of a focus problem, wouldn't you say? Well, at least with them gathered in one list I can make more intelligent choices of priorities then just drifting into what catches my attention at the moment. And that in itself is progress. I also organized my targets for syndicating articles and now need to get some articles into the format that the outlets want.

So there's my syndication project for One Stop and some billable maintenance work for tomorrow. Should keep me busy.

I feel like I should say something more than just publishing my to-do list, but the inspiration just isn't there tonight. I'm a little apprehensive over the fact that half of my work day went down today as the dreaded "organizing," but I'm keeping an eye on it to make sure it has a goal that gets attained and doesn't become an end unto itself.

That's too easy to do -- the old story of procrastinating by busying yourself with things that give the satisfaction of feeling really busy without having to deal with the accountability that comes from having to produce results. "Results? You can't expect tangible results from this. I'm just preparing for something I'm planning to do sometime in the future. I'm just organizing things so they'll go smoother when I actually get around to doing them."

Yeah, sure. Granted, there are times when you have to take time to organize. But you have to be careful to make sure to use those times as tools to accomplish something and not merely to put off the actual doing of things that have measurable results.
Jeff

Focusing
I got another milestone done on my billable work today, adding the testimonials we had collected to one site. Tomorrow I need to get testimonials up on the other.

It's interesting how many milestones I've passed ever since my client and I scaled things back. One after another that had sat, untouched, on my wish list are getting done. Getting out from under the routine work has helped. And not having new project ideas pushed ahead of ongoing work means I actually get to complete projects. What a novel thought!

Yes, there's no substitute for focus when it comes to getting things done.

Now I just have to apply that to my own site as well. I weeded down my to-do list a bit today, but still kept on it nine products that I'd like to test and review. Well, they're going to have to go onto my long term list (namely, the list where I put things that I simply don't have any hope of ever finding time to do them, but can't bring myself to axe them permanently).

Learning new things is important, but it can sure get in the way of progress. And what good is it to gather all kinds of knowledge if you just store it away in your head and never put it to use for others' good?

Does the world benefit from me learning more, or putting what I already know into helping others grow? Yet the draw is so powerful toward those things that isolate us instead of making us productive.

I'm reminded of the old Simon and Garfunkel song, "I am a Rock," where they sang,
"I have my books and my poetry to protect me.
I am shielded in my armor.
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb,
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock. I am an island."

Simply learning only isolates us. Putting ourselves out there, taking risks, serving needs, is what gives us a life worth living.
Jeff

A full day newsletter
Issue number 1 of the One Stop Web Support newsletter is now out. Wow. A full day's work. I have a lot more respect for the writers of the newsletters I receive. I trust I'll find ways to do things faster as I go along, but, still, it's a major commitment.

At least I have a head start on the next one. I divided an article on a topic that was just too big to cover briefly into a three part series. So I can start from there next time.

It feels good to write. I'm finding putting what I know out there for others very rewarding. I find myself wishing I could jump right into the next newsletter and get it ready and on the shelf for two weeks from now.

But, again, billable work calls tomorrow. But the excitement of my own site should act as a carrot to get me working through that as quickly as I can to get back to it. Next on the docket is listing with the directories and syndicating some articles to build some more avenues for traffic into the site.
Jeff

Tonight, somebody who does it right
Last night I told a cautionary tale about a pizza chain that took a great idea of online ordering and managed to totally mess it up. Tonight, I've got someone who's doing it right.

I got an update this evening from 1Shopping Cart, my shopping cart of choice. I've always liked the wide array of features they provide, making them kind of the Swiss Army knife of shopping carts. But they blew me away with their latest announcement.

Recognizing that having a whole truckload of features leads to a lot of people who never use those features to its fullest potential, they went out and created a separate training site packed with videos to help users make better use of all the useful features their shopping cart provides.

Great customer service—but also a great business move. They now have removed the objection of "But will I be able to learn it all?" from potential customer's minds and enhanced their credibility as a company that looks out for their customers.

It just goes to show that the smartest business strategy is good customer service.
Jeff

A Tale of Two Pizzas
I was working on the first newsletter for One Stop this afternoon, when my wife reminded me I had promised to order pizza for supper. I quickly navigated to my shopping bookmarks and looked at the two pizza chains we usually order from.

One of them we like because they usually have some interesting specials that satisfy our desire for adventure (ordering pizza an adventure? I have got to get a life!). The other one has pizzas we like, but hasn't had any new specials that interested us lately.

I looked at them both for a second, deciding which to check first. Then a little bell went off in my head. I had had problems with the one I was leaning toward, the one with the interesting specials. I've found their online ordering process to be an adventure—in a negative sense—with failures to properly subtract discounts, confusing navigation, pages that would be there one second and gone the next.

More than once, I had called the local delivery place after placing my order to make sure I got the discount I was entitled to. At least once, I reported technical problems to their technical support. My calls to the local store convinced someone there to grudgingly apply the discount to my orders. My technical support e-mail got no response. (I hope they fixed the problem but it would have been nice if they had at least responded that they'd work on it.)

Now, there've been more times that I've had no problems with them than times that I did. But guess which pizza chain fell out of contention for our order the second that little warning bell went off.

It's a shame, but a fact of business life. Mess something up for a customer and no matter how well or how many times you've come through for them in the past and what they'll remember are the negatives. And once they start remembering the negatives, you probably won't see them again.

There's a lesson for all of us in business. Make sure things work. Answer e-mails promptly. Make your process as smooth as humanly possible so people don't have to endure mistakes.

Because there's no faster way to lose a customer than to treat them like they don't matter to you.
Jeff

A whole different mindset
There's a whole different mindset to running your own business. Even with no "boss" to call the shots, I still find myself drifting into looking to others to determine my direction.

Only it's not someone assigning me projects; it's opportunities that others present me with. I've come across some great products lately and some great free tools I'd love to let people know about. I'd love to set up information on my site about them, but my son's track meet today and the need to finish some billable work for someone else makes that difficult.

I'll drop in a few of them here from time to time while I line them up for their place on the site.

One that got my attention last night was Cory Rudl's latest project. He held a huge Customer Appreciation Event last summer with some of the biggest names in Internet marketing presenting their best strategies.

I didn't get to it, but have heard nothing but praise for the weekend from those who went. From what I hear, it wasn't just the paying crowd who learned a lot there. Even the big boys who are already making millions a year picked up new strategies from hearing each others' presentations.

Cory put together an awesome package of nine DVDs or videos from it. It stands to be a great source of information on ways that the top Internet sellers use that really work for them!

So you hear it first here, before I even get a chance to do anything about it on my site.

But back to where I started. Opportunities can become a de facto boss if you let them. It's been a struggle my chief client and I have had all along. There are so many things that we could do and never enough time to do them all.

Try to keep up with them all and you'll soon find yourself feeling like you're back at working for someone else, struggling to keep up with what's expected of you. But the irony is that that someone who's controlling your life doesn't exist. It's a box you put yourself into because you want to jump on every opportunity that presents itself.

At least that's what I'm dealing with right now: the inclination to keep biting off more than I can chew. Keeping focused is crucial. What do you want to do with your business? Stick with the plan and don't let opportunities bully you into doing something else.
Jeff